​Well, that didn’t take long. After a love affair with the Republican Party and Donald Trump, Christian Nephilim theorist L. A. Marzulli has turned against the party whose leader he recently said was God’s own choice for governance, and for the most banal of reasons: money. Marzulli is upset that Congress doesn’t work long enough, and when they do they find new ways to burn money. Specifically, Marzulli claims that “I’m furious about this as I pay upward of 50% of my income to the Feds and the state,” and he doesn’t want to keep paying. He had hoped that the Republicans would give him tax relief by cutting social programs. You know, like Jesus would. I have to ask: What is he doing wrong to pay so much since the average American has a total tax burden of less than 30% (excluding sales and property tax), according to The Motley Fool?

​I’ve been trying to figure how one would end up paying 50% of income in taxes. The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. is currently 39.6%, on income over $415,050. Let us assume a hypothetical taxpayer with a taxable income of, say, $500,000. The federal taxes for our hypothetical taxpayer would be about $154,170, or an effective rate of about 31%. State tax rates are much lower, with the highest being California at 12.3% for incomes over $526,444, with an additional 1% surcharge for incomes over $1 million. It is 11.3% for our hypothetical $500,000 income. Marzulli lives in Malibu, California, according to state records. Now, since California rates are marginal, that means that the effective state tax rate is much lower. Perhaps Marzulli is also counting property taxes, even though they are local and not state or federal? If so, he would need extensive real estate holdings to generate enough in property tax. Obviously, lower incomes would have much lower tax rates, and capital gains have lower rates as well, making it very hard to get up to 50%. If he’s paying 50% of his income in taxes, it would seem like he would have to structure his business as self-employment rather than putting his business into a corporation, meaning that he’s paying self-employment taxes and other business-related taxes out of his income instead of separating personal and business monies.

Based on this, I thought I’d see if Marzulli had a corporation, and it turns out that he does. According to the California Secretary of State’s office, Marzulli incorporated himself as Spiral of Life, Inc., and he is the sole officer of the corporation. It is headquartered at an address matching what Zillow.com says is a 2,700-square-foot private residence estimated by Zillow to be worth more than $2,500,000, down from a pre-crash estimate of $7 million. According to Los Angeles County assessment records, the house was purchased in 1987 for $190,000 but is given on official listings at just 1,300 square feet based on an assessment survey conducted in 1998. The house was placed on the market at $1.2 million in 2012 but was not sold. For Marzulli’s privacy, I won’t give the street address here. The California Secretary of State has online filings for Spiral of Life only back to 2016, when records state that it was first incorporated, but Marzulli’s blog first mentions it in 2009, when he said he lacked the money to fund its publishing deals.

In short, for Marzulli’s statement about his tax liability to be true, he would need to be making a lot of money and have a lot of assets to generate that kind of tax. It seems that Marzulli has inadvertently told us quite a bit about how much it pays to be a religious extremist selling the faithful fantasies about gay cannibal giants.

Even if Marzulli is exaggerating for effect, it’s clear that a whole ecosystem of rightwing “thinkers” agree that selling fake history with a side of polemic is a recipe for power and profit. In the new issue of Jacobin magazine, there is a piece about the fake history and postmodern irrationalism of the so-called alt-right, focusing first on the ancient astronautics of Jason Reza Jorjani, the doctor of philosophy who joined forces with white nationalist Richard Spencer to launch altright.com. “In one instance, he suggested that Yahweh and Allah were actually space aliens who enslaved their believers and tricked them into committing genocide. He has openly characterized certain high-ranking Nazi officials as akin to supermen with psychic powers.” Yup, all of that is in his book Prometheus and Atlas (2016) as well as in speeches he has given to promote rightwing causes. Some in the alt-right are ancient astronaut theorists now, and I’d love to see how the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition manage to accommodate that alongside their hypocritical insistence on punitive Christianity.

Last month Jorjani advocated for an “Aryan Imperium,” which is only slightly more extreme than the “Aryan World Order” he praised in his 2016 book.

I call attention to the Jacobin article by Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss because it was written by some of Jorjani’s onetime classmates from SUNY Stony Brook, both now professors of philosophy, and their piece echoes my own concern that the media and polite society are too quick to dismiss extreme beliefs as aberrations that will somehow go away if ignored. This is not the case, and the authors note that wishing away Donald Trump failed to overturn his rejection of reality.

Second, Jorjani’s work participates in a significant philosophical tradition that combines antisemitism with occult beliefs. The long historical association between irrationalism and anti-Judaism suggests that they emanate from a common worldview. After all, the mystical, neo-pagan writings of Dietrich Eckart inspired much of the Third Reich’s racial policy. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Hitler’s friend and mentor, proclaimed that “every Mystic is, whether he will or not, a born Anti-Semite.”

​Jorjani’s opposition is different than that of the traditional anti-Semite because he opposes all Abrahamic faith (including Christianity) as derived from Judaism and therefore corrupt and evil, a product of a genocidal space alien who stands against humanity’s ability to achieve the status of Nietzsche’s übermenschen.

The authors echo the feelings I had in reading Prometheus and Atlas, particularly in noting the author’s fascination with Nazi philosophy, his embrace of the worst tendencies of the Ancient Aliens school of history, his embrace of the paranormal, and his postmodern attack on the Enlightenment and objective reality. At times, their review is virtually point by point identical to the one I produced for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, which is due to be published in a few months’ time. I am glad that my impressions have now been confirmed by accredited philosophers!

I urge you to read their article because it makes important points about the multiprong attack on the Enlightenment, and indeed the very idea that we can agree on an objective description of reality, that is currently occurring from the academic left and the white nationalist right because neither side likes that facts fail to agree with ideology.

"Aryan Imperium"? Great, more appropriation of Warhammer 40,000 by the alt-right.

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A Buddhist

3/12/2017 09:41:06 am

What I find so sad is the fact that Warhammer 40,000 is so easy to see as a satirical criticism of fascist tyranny. Certainly, the Imperium of Man is a fascist state, but it is also incompetent, unnecessarily harsh, and so dedicated to preserving traditions that it is losing the opportunity to embrace scientific advances that could make everything much easier.

But then, the Imperium of Man, like the Nazis, has a strong military ethos and a focus on beautiful military uniforms and equipment; perhaps this is what made it attractive to the Alt-Right/Neo-Nazis.

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LwellyntheLast

3/14/2017 12:38:56 am

Honestly, it's almost funny. The Imperium is so obviously modeled off the Soviet Union, that for the Alt Right to embrace it is comical.

Shane Sullivan

3/12/2017 12:58:15 pm

What's next, McCarthyite Tau witch-hunts?

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A Buddhist

3/12/2017 01:12:49 pm

Lol, possibly. But the Tau are communist totalitarians, and so they would make a poor fit for McCarthyism.

Shane Sullivan

3/12/2017 01:17:14 pm

Yeah, I was referring to the witch-hunts against the communists, not by them.

A C

3/12/2017 04:54:01 pm

The Imperium isn't unnecessarily harsh, it exists in a fictional setting that bends over itself to justify its tyranny as necessary. Most of the 'incompetence' is in the hands of bureaucrats and the barely legitimate government of a regency council and making jokes about incompetent bureaucrats is something anyone can get behind. Having the bureaucrats be at fault for the failures of the heroic superhuman space knights isn't exactly anti-fascist and a government that's bad because the autocratic Emperor isn't actually able to enforce his will is the no1 excuse of every autocratic regime.

40k might not always idolise fascism but its ultimately nihilist. Its a satire, but its a satire that rejects the concept of 'solutions' because its in the British tradition that cares more about venting frustration in a humorous way so you can get back to not bothering to solve any thing. If you're not British you might not notice this, but 40k and the Judge Dread comics it rips off aren't satires of fascism, they're satires of government that use fascist comparisons to attack the legitimacy of non-fascist governments. Since they attack states without promoting anarchism, they're nihilist in concept and since they tend to portray the military/police anti-heroes as the protagonists anyway they tend to end up being autocratic in the same way as the American tv series 24.

Its origins are in the same British cultural scene that brought us 'ironic' fascist punk bands. Using ambiguous satire for plausible deniability is a good way to express yourself if society views you as abhorrent. Liking 40k doesn't make you fascist but its a good hiding place if you are one.

But the Alt-right loves fantasy and mediaevalism in general so analysing the appeal of one specific work isn't that relevant. Mobile Suit Gundam and Star Wars also had have always had strong "rooting for the villains" components of their fandoms. The intentions of the authors will always be irrelevant to the uniform fetishists.

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LwellyntheLast

3/14/2017 12:42:59 am

Honestly, much of quote unquote "geekdom" is a great hiding place for fascists. I've encountered neo-nazis or the alt right playing Warhammer, but I've also encountered them in nearly every video game where I've ever made the bad decision to play online. So many SS or Wehrmacht inspired usernames.

gdave

3/12/2017 09:27:02 am

Jason,

Minor quibble about Mr. Marzulli's taxes: you forgot about FICA taxes. The Social Security portion is a 6.2% flat tax, although capped at an income of $118,500. The Medicare portion is an uncapped 1.45%. If he's self-employed, which he seems to be, he would also pay the employer's portion, which doubles the tax rate, but the way he would calculate his taxable income gets very convoluted. The upshot is, for a hypothetical income of $500,000, he'd also be paying about 5% in FICA taxes.

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gdave

3/12/2017 09:29:21 am

Gah. Strike all of the above. You did take that into account, and pointed out he seems to be incorporated for tax purposes, not self-employed.

No, you actually raised a good point: His corporation is listed as a "publisher," so it isn't clear how much of his business is sheltered under it since he runs so many different operations.

Americanegro

3/13/2017 02:52:33 am

Don't forget his Obamacare payment or at least the individual mandate penalty part, which the Roberts Supreme Court wrongly decided is a tax. Anything you pay the government to avoid a tax is indistinguishable from a tax. Maybe he should pull a John Edwards, restructure into a Subchapter S and take his income in the form of dividends, taxed at 15%.

That's the issue, isn't it? Is he self-employed, or does he pay himself through his corporation? I've never had enough money to make a difference, but the advice I had always received is that if I ever made good money from my books, I should have a corporation to take advantage of tax benefits it provides to be paid through the corporation rather than being self-employed. It seems like before complaining about taxes and raging against the government and politicians for not doing it for him, he should work with an accountant and financial planner to structure his finances better.

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A Buddhist

3/12/2017 09:34:49 am

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Hitler’s friend and mentor, proclaimed that “every Mystic is, whether he will or not, a born Anti-Semite.”

This is such a bizarre sentiment! Was Mr. Chamberlain forgetting about Jewish mysticism and mystics? Or did he think that they were self-hating Jews? Or did he deny that they were real mystics?

But then, since his friend Hitler was willing to proclaim the Japanese honourary Aryans, perhaps Chamberlain was willing to proclaim Jewish mystics as dishonourary non-mystics. How appropriate, if true! White supremacy, appropriately for a pseudo-science, is never unwilling to distort facts in order to fit predetermined narratives, which in turn support predetermined conclusions.

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Only Me

3/12/2017 11:43:52 am

>>>White supremacy, appropriately for a pseudo-science, is never unwilling to distort facts in order to fit predetermined narratives, which in turn support predetermined conclusions.<<<

Actually, Buddhist, that accurately describes pseudoscience in general. Every fringe idea Jason has investigated reveals a willingness to distort facts and evidence to fit both predetermined narratives and conclusions. When you factor in the racial and political influences that often form such ideas, white supremacy/nationalism is in good company.

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A Buddhist

3/12/2017 01:15:32 pm

Indeed, and that is why I said "appropriately for a pseudo-science".

Shane Sullivan

3/12/2017 01:02:10 pm

"But then, since his friend Hitler was willing to proclaim the Japanese honourary Aryans, perhaps Chamberlain was willing to proclaim Jewish mystics as dishonourary non-mystics."

That seems likely. Like the Christian Identity people who think that Jews aren't "true" Israelites, Chamberlain probably felt that Jewish mystics weren't "real" mystics. Or maybe that they weren't real Jews.

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Graham

3/12/2017 08:08:00 pm

I've actually found that just about every conspiracy theory I have encountered eventually ends up with 'Jews are behind it all'. So if you substitute 'conspiracy theorist' for 'mystic' that statement is correct.

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The One

3/12/2017 09:47:50 am

Unless you make a lot of money you will be clueless about taxes. You lose your exemptions when you hit a certain level. You then lose your deductions. You also pay a Medicare tax of up to 3.8 percent. Then you pay alternative minimum tax. State income taxes, business taxes at the state, county, and city. Many of us pay over 50 percent in taxes. I'm not complaining. But it's true. The one percent.

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PostModernPrimate

3/12/2017 05:03:32 pm

Oh, to have to suffer the problems of making a lot of money! #1percenterTroubles #nosympathy

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THE ONE

3/12/2017 05:35:01 pm

Like I wrote, I don't mind paying. But I have worked to get this far. Jealousy isn't a nice feeling, is it?

Only Me

3/12/2017 11:49:45 am

You know, I bet Marzulli would be an ardent believer in the joke, "If ten percent is good enough for God, it should be good enough for the government!"

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Brian

3/12/2017 01:52:00 pm

Mr. Marzulli should be jumping for joy that he isn't living in his much-lamented 1950s, when those pesky women and African-Americans knew their place, no homosexuals dared admit it, and White Male Reality was the only Reality in town, because then the top tax rate was 90%. And yet somehow or other our economy managed to skyrocket into outer space! Those Republican economists never have managed to explain that one away, but stick to their notions that taxing the rich somehow ruins everything for everybody.

I myself don't have a problem with paying my fair share in taxes. I don't have kids, but I pay school taxes, because I know it's those kids who are going to be running things when I'm old and feeble, and I'd sure like them to be educated. We pay dues to belong to clubs and, evidently, pay insanely high dues to belong to Mar-a-Lago. Why shouldn't we pay dues to belong to a civil society?

But Marzulli & Co. don't want a civil society. They want some sort of authoritarian plutocracy, somehow believing they'll all be included in the -ocracy part.

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Titus pullo

3/12/2017 04:36:37 pm

Feel free to pay as much as u want but most federal programs exist to enrich those that are well connected and are simply not constitutional. As for the 50s, yes where we spent 40percent less in real dollars on defense, when wages were such that one spouse could raise kids and not outsource to some daycare and where obesity wasn't such a problem because fami,it's had time to cook. Wasn't perfect but I'll take a much smaller federal govt that doesn't distort prices (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the fed) and force Americans into a debt cycle of no return along with constant wars. Believe me I just got through getting two kids through school(one is at Jason's alma). And was involved on my school board. It's not about the kids but the unions, administrators and vendors. Most of the federal govt could be shut down and we would be better for it. sound money, free markets, limited govt, and peace.

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PostModernPrimate

3/12/2017 05:06:44 pm

Yes, that all worked out so well in the Gilded Age of capitalism when unfettered markets and small government lead to the Great Depression.

Titus pullo

3/12/2017 06:50:08 pm

Oh yes that robber baron Andrew Carnagie who was a member of the anti imperialist league and was willing to buy the Philippines for 20m to free the people who were not freed by the American liberators but in a war with that great trust buster and progressive teddy Roosevelt and the Spanish American war. And less not forget James Hill the builder of the great northern railroad that without govt bailouts created vast economic opportunities or immigrants and opened Adan markets for small farmers until TR went after him. Sorry robber barons created the middle class. Govt central planners and war mongers have but future generations in massive debt and have killed millions. Govt is nothing but brute force that needs to be chained down.

David Bradbury

3/13/2017 05:00:23 am

Funnily enough, the Great Northern Railroad may provide the key to what really went wrong in the USA. Basically, once it had expanded from sea to shining sea with the help of the railroads, opportunities to acquire new lands for development in the wilderness came to a halt, and all progress had to be achieved the hard way.

Americanegro

3/13/2017 07:49:12 am

"POSTMODERNPRIMATE
3/12/2017 05:06:44 pm
Yes, that all worked out so well in the Gilded Age of capitalism when unfettered markets and small government lead to the Great Depression."

It's good to finally know the real cause of the Great Depression. Thanks for setting us straight.

titus pullo

3/13/2017 07:15:53 pm

You really want to go there? Most immigrants of pre 1980s came during 1870-1920 from Southern and Eastern Europe. They simply wouldn't be coming here if there were such dire economic work conditions. My Grandparents on both sides came from Italy and as manual laborers were able to buy a house with running hot water and heat, were able to buy land (you don't know how much that meant to European peasants) and put their kids and their grandkids on a path of wealth unimaginable to most people of the late 19th century. As for the Great Depression, look up the Great Depression of 1920 and how Warren G. Harding understood economics far better than Keynes....you might realize that Hoover/FDR's interventionism took a recession and created enormous pain on most people (yes the architect of the new deal admitted they just took Hoovers idiotic ideas on not allowing prices to fall, raising taxes and regulations, and not allowing the market to correct itself and locked us into a depression for a decade. But I digress and this isn't a blog for economic debates.

I don't think the 50's were perfect but we sure were not in middle eastern wars and dependent on foreign nations to buy our debt or having our central bank to print money to keep our heads above water.

I have no patience for fringe alien/atlantis advocates but I have no patience either for 'experts" who believe they know what is best through force on the individual.

Brian

3/14/2017 11:40:35 am

Harding understood economics???!!!! Harding, an easygoing dunderhead who understood only one thing: cronyism??? The most corrupt administration in our history, until this one?? Good grief, pick up a book that wasn't written by Hayek or Friedman!

Why didn't we have a major crash from the Depression through 2007? Because of regulations. The Glass-Steagall Act was demolished (yes, under Clinton - greed works both sides of the street), because Citicorp, and thus the bubble, thus the crash. Q.E.D.

Pardon my attitude, but anyone who touts Harding as a shining example is not deserving of kid gloves.

A C

3/12/2017 06:13:58 pm

Is "return to the Enlightenment" really any better than "return to the 1950s?"

They're both equally inaccurate in their nostalgic idealism. The French revolution ended up stripping rights from women, do we really want to go back to a pre-feminist world?

Jacobin might be a cute name for a rag but let's not forget that the real Jacobins were the precursors to every violent oppressive revolutionary government. ISIS are the Jacobins of the moment, not American journalists.

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Wailliaka

3/16/2017 04:16:27 am

Women had NO rights before the revolution. You fell for right wing propaganda.

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Americanegro

3/12/2017 09:23:04 pm

My take on the so-called Abrahamic religions (after asking the first question to ask of all new religions "Is this really just a scheme to have sex with kids?") is that Muhammad took a page out of the Hebrews' book and co-opted one of many local deities of the Kuraysh and promoted (in both senses of the word) Him to Supreme Unique Godness. Just as the Hebrews did with JHVH. He paid lip service to Judaism and Christianity because that is what one does until the hand is firmly on the sword. Christianity, we'll never know that truth because it was perverted and derailed by Paul, the patron saint of genocide and closets, and turned into a "Let's make up some wacky ceremonies and wacky ideas" Burning Man festival. The U.S. is not "a Judeo-Christian" nation; that's just more lip service. Here's the crux: Jews, Christians, and Muslims do not worship the same God. They worship three very different versions of something that doesn't exist.

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Jason D Carroll

11/17/2018 05:38:39 am

Great news, at 6 minutes, la marzuli says he has insurance on his house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Kc4phUeSE

same video, at 7:30 minutes he says he is not a millionaire.

But he lives in a $2.5MILLION dollar house, and a 50% tax burden? How do you hit 50%??? You are not poor.

LA can you please speak about your net worth being well over a million dollars, but yet you are asking for the public at large to support your new home?
https://networthpost.org/net-worth/l-a-marzulli-net-worth/

You were shown driving around in a nice Mercedes SUV with a mask on describing the fire aftermath. You could have likely sold that car to get nearly the money that people have sent you now.

https://www.facebook.com/lamarzulli/videos/10212214893908306/?t=1

Watching that video, it appears this is the model of vehical you have:

https://www.mbusa.com/en/vehicles/model/gle/suv/gle400w4#

Starting at $55,700. Life must be tough.

I am confused why you feel you are in a dire straights and need monetary help so bad.

Thank you.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.